


Antihero

by irithyll



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Gen, Low-Key Bullying, Seifer's just misunderstood, he deserved better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 07:41:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18339176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irithyll/pseuds/irithyll
Summary: He had always imagined that he was destined for so much more than this.





	Antihero

He had always imagined that he was destined for so much more than  _this._  Each day that passed seemed more akin to that of a predictable, recurring nightmare than that of a life that he was living. It all seemed like such a goddamn waste, especially now as he surveyed the room to witness his fellow classmates as they rambled aimlessly about a bunch of shit that  _didn't fucking matter._ None of it made sense to him - you get one life, so why waste it obsessing over Triple Triad and who chose to attend last weekend's party?

Seifer leaned into his chair and allowed his head to loll back, bringing the ceiling into view. He squinted as he studied each and every colored speck that littered the tiles above and he felt the urge to laugh because, honestly, even  _this_  was a lot more interesting than the chatter around him.

The heavy clicking of heeled boots interrupted his musings, coming to a stop beside him. Languidly, he tilted his head to the left and gave her a hard glare from the corner of his eye.

"Why do you even come?" Quistis asked, her mouth set in a grim line as she crossed her arms across her chest, the bright yellow bow of her tie wrinkling with the movement. It wouldn't suit the rest of her finely pressed uniform because Quistis Trepe was living, breathing perfection.

He made a mental note to add that tie to the list of things he's ruined.

Seifer closed his eyes, pausing momentarily to analyze the vitriol in her voice. Of  _course_  she was disappointed in him-who  _wasn't_?

"I come to learn, not to socialize." He didn't even bother cracking open an eye to watch her sigh and roll those pretty blue eyes.

She leaned in close and he could both smell the light scent of her perfume and feel the heat of her breath against the side of his face.

"There's no point in learning if you don't fix the attitude."

And then she slipped into her desk as though she hadn't just driven a spear through his chest with her unsolicited advice and it made him want to drive his fist through the wall.

He didn't need to open his eyes to see the amused smirks on his classmates' faces because he was just Seifer Almasy, the silly little boy who pretended he'd be SeeD someday, and there was no point in arguing with Quistis Trepe, child prodigy at age fourteen who could never do any wrong in the eyes of Balamb.

* * *

"They're talkin' about ya, you know?"

Seifer chewed his mouthful of sandwich thoughtfully, straining to make out the conversation taking place behind him. It wasn't often that the Disciplinary Committee ate in the school cafeteria, but every time they did, he was quickly reminded of the reasons he kept away.

" _I wish they'd just expel him already."_

" _He's so scary!"_

" _I can't believe Quistis would waste her time talking to someone like him!"_

" _I heard he uses the same weapon as Squall."_

" _Yeah, but Squall could kick his ass, I bet."_

Seifer swallowed, brows furrowed in frustration as he dropped the rest of his sandwich onto his tray. Raijin looked over at Fujin, and she tilted her head to the side, silver strands of hair falling to obscure the patch over her eye.

"STUPID."

Raijin nodded his head and clapped his hands together animatedly. "We should give 'em a citation, ya know? Gossip is against Garden rules."

He began to rise from his seat, but Seifer leaned forward to catch the front of his vest and gave it a tug, inspiring him to fall back into his seat.

"Nah," Seifer shook his head and rolled his shoulders in a shrug, "Don't bother. We've got bigger fish to fry."

He took another bite of his sandwich as he watched the rain pelt the window beside him, but the way his free hand clenched against the surface of the table did not go unnoticed.

Fujin cleared her throat and he averted his gaze to meet the judgment of her lone crimson iris. He's seen this look in her eyes a million times, a  _different_  kind of disappointment, but it doesn't faze him anymore.

"Problem, Fu?" He asked, and she only shook her head, returning to her noodles that had suddenly lost their appeal.

_Yeah_ , he thought to himself,  _you're pretty damn STUPID, Almasy._

* * *

His lip stung, but the burn of the sun's rays against his face was a welcome distraction from the sensation. He allowed his tongue to brush against the corner of his mouth and was met with the taste of blood. It didn't surprise him, not with the way Xu busted him in the mouth with as much strength as she could muster earlier that morning.

He would have been a little impressed if he didn't hate her and her damn mouth so damn much. She was always so eager to defend Quistis without even considering that  _maybe_  she didn't fucking need it. Maybe he was sort of, almost, just about her  _friend_  despite being the villain of Garden, but he figured no one would ever want to believe their star SeeD would associate with the likes of him.

Or, you know, maybe she was just stringing him along like most of the people in his life always had.

Seifer tilted his chin upwards, letting the sun bathe his face more fully. The scent of the salt of the ocean and the grain of the sand against his skin were the only thing that ever brought him peace these days and he was glad to revel in it now as he stretched out on the beach.

But he was Seifer Almasy, the most unlucky fuck in all of Gaia, and he was soon cast with a shadow.

"Could you move?" He asked, the back of his hand shielding his eyes as if the darkness burned them.

"Don't you have class?" The cool, melodious sound of her voice somehow worsened his ire.

Of  _course_  it was Quistis. It had been at least eight hours since she had gotten onto him about something, so he was very much overdue for a lecture.

"Probably."

He hadn't expected her to sit beside him, cross-legged in the sand, and he looked over at her with a sideways smirk.

"You'll get sand all over your fancy new SeeD uniform."

Quistis gave him a pointed look and he relented.

"Why are you always sabotaging yourself, Seifer?" There was a softness to her voice, a tone so sweet that he almost believed that perhaps she actually cared about him.

He offered no response, taken back by her words. Is that what you called standing up for something you believed in-"self-sabotage?"

Seifer laughed bitterly.

"Shouldn't you get going, Trepe? I'd hate to tarnish your reputation just because someone saw you share the same breathing space as someone like me."

Maybe one day, they'd go as far as to call it "honor."

* * *

Did they fucking forget that Squall disfigured  _him_ , too? Had no one noticed the scar on his fucking face, too? Did everyone just fucking  _forget_  what he had looked like before?

Seifer felt the urge to drive his fist through the wall as he passed through the halls, an eerie silence enveloping those around him. Once he passed, he heard the whispers that flitted about, caught tail ends of  _poor Squall_  and  _what a dick that guy is._

It made him feel sick to his stomach.

Squall, Garden's golden boy, could never do any wrong. For Hyne knows why, he had somehow been elevated to that same, immaculate pedestal that Quistis had been thrust upon since the day she first stepped foot in Garden. Squall and Quistis, the ever-pragmatic leader and the child prodigy turned SeeD instructor at the ripe age of eighteen.

They deserved each other.

Quistis had been nearly hysterical at the infirmary earlier, waving her hands about as she shouted at him while Dr. Kadowaki cleaned his wound.

"Really, Seifer? Was that  _really_  necessary?" She had gestured towards Squall through the window, unconscious on one of the cots.

Seifer rolled his eyes.

_Yeah, Seifer, fuck you for ruining Squall's pretty face._

She even had the nerve to call him out in class with her instruction for him to  _not_  injure his partner during the field exam. Why hadn't Squall received the same order?

Oh right. It was because Squall was her  _best_  student.

What a load of sht.

* * *

Seifer was fucking  _done_  trying to save Garden from its own failures and he was just about over the Headmaster and his apparent obliviousness in just about  _everything._ Hadn't Cid given them a speech about free thought, how he didn't want SeeD to solely be the cogs of a war machine, but instead individual soldiers with voices? He  _knew_  he heard Cid speak passionately about SeeD being able to act and think for themselves…

...so why the hell was he vilified for investigating the communication tower? It wasn't like he had abandoned an objective to pursue the Galbadian Army. His squad had simply been sitting around with their dicks in their hands with  _genuinely_  nothing better to do. Seifer's decision had been exactly the thing Cid had spoken so highly about.

And yet there Xu was, calling him a joke of a captain in nearly the same breath within which she admitted it was because of  _him_  that they discovered Galbadia's true intentions in Dollet. Seifer certainly didn't hit women, but, if he ever decided to throw his morals aside and go for it, he figured Xu would be first on his list.

To add insult to injury, they had reprimanded him for going to  _Timber_ , too, in order to provide damage control for Cid's horrible decision. How much sense did it make to send three wet-behind-the-ears SeeDs on a near suicide-mission against an  _entire_  nation with the support of one of the most vague contracts to have ever been drafted in all of Gaia's history?

Hilarious.

Absolutely  _hilarious_.

Even when he was right, Seifer was wrong.

Why even try anymore?

* * *

Seifer found it difficult to believe the crackling of the flames around them was real given that he felt so damn  _cold_. The numbness that slowly enveloped him had begun in his chest, radiating outwards from the deep slash that cleaved through clothing and skin alike. It was, perhaps, a fatal blow based on the way in which Rinoa wrinkled her nose at the sight of it and Edea's eyes narrowed with anger.

Somehow, knowing such didn't bother him. Not really.

It was never going to end well, was it? Might as well have been Squall, the rival Garden forced upon him for Hyne knows why, who did him in. At least someone would get some glory out of his death - Squall, the hero of Garden and the golden boy SeeD who finally vanquished the looming dark shadow that was Seifer Almasy.

He sneered at the notion of it. This would be the final entry to the exhaustive laundry list of fuck-ups on his part. What a romantic death it was to die by the hands of Squall Leonhart at the feet of the sorceress. Garden would love it.

Seifer allowed his eyes to flutter closed momentarily and he took in a long, slow breath that was met with the comforting taste of salt and the ocean. He wondered if it was somehow Edea's doing and he opened his eyes to study the blurred silhouette of her back.

How foolish of him to ever think he would amount to anything. The Sorceress's Knight?  _Really?_

If he had more strength to muster, he probably would have laughed at himself.

He thought of Fujin, Raijin, and even  _Trepe_. Would they somehow lament his death in secret or would they participate in the inevitable party to celebrate it?

A grunt escaped him as he pulled his hand away from the surface of his chest. Even in the low candlelight, he could tell his gloves were slick with the ruby sheen of his own blood.

So this is how it ends.

And then he felt it - the shift in the environment, the way the air suddenly felt almost  _electrified_  around him. He heard a buzzing in his ears and he forced himself to tilt his head to the side, bringing Edea and Squall's ragtag party into view.

He could see his breath forming dense crystals in the air as he let out each shallow pant. A wispy, blue aura began to envelop the Sorceress, slinking along the length of her frame in long, willowy tendrils.

Seifer watched ice form in the air, saw it materialize into long, jagged spears. It was surreal to witness such an other-wordly manifestation occur right before his eyes.

What spell  _was_  that?

With a swiftness that he couldn't quite register, the icicles shot through the air with a loud hiss and he heard Rinoa's shrill cry of horror before he realized what had happened.

With dull, mossy eyes, he watched the blood bloom upon Squall's chest where the icicles had speared him. Squall's expression slackened, his pale skin somehow losing the little color it held, and he limply stumbled backwards.

Huh.

He hadn't expected that, but, then again, weren't they bound by some strange, unspoken thread? Squall and Seifer were two sides of the same coin, weren't they?

How fitting that they'd die together. Garden would  _really_  love that twist.

He managed to laugh, the sound escaping his lips as an indecipherable, wet gurgle.

Seifer heard the delicate, tinkling chime of Edea's ornamental jewelry and he forced open an eye to observe her as she hovered above him, expression stoic.

"I...failed." He managed, teeth gritting with each syllable that he uttered. "As expected."

Edea laughed - a strangely empty sound.

"My boy, you have not failed. Your legacy has only begun. They will learn to respect what it is to be the Sorceress's Knight when they're forced to bow before the both of us."

She leaned in close, her painted lips hovering just above the shell of his outer ear. He hadn't expected her breath to be so  _icy_  as it bathed the side of his face when she spoke.

"Rise, my champion, so we can rewrite history."

And then he felt it - a warmth he couldn't describe, one that came to life from a spark that fired deep within his chest.

Maybe, this time, he could make something out of himself.

Maybe, this time, he really meant something to someone.

Maybe, this time, he'd finally do it right.


End file.
